


Ain't Nothing They Can Handle

by geckoholic



Series: author's favorites [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Humor, M/M, Mild Smut, Roommates, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 03:38:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7997197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>There's a saying that you don't actually know a person until you've shared a space with them. Steve is no stranger to cohabitation, but after roughly a week of rooming with both Sam and Bucky he's starting to truly understand what that saying means.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ain't Nothing They Can Handle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lazywriter7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazywriter7/gifts).



> We didn't match on much, so I just took what we did match on and ran with it. Also, it's kinda based on two TFLN tweets ("913: I decided to have sex with him one more time to make sure I don't like him." and "805: Her fuck buddy was butt ass naked in our kitchen making waffles but they tasted so bomb.") because that's always fun.
> 
> Beta-read by yohkobennington, and much of this fic's existence is owed to brainstorming and babbling about it with cloud-atlas. Thank you!! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Gorgeous" by X-Ambassadors.

There's a saying, Steve recalls as he sits down at the massive counter in the kitchenette of the Wakandan apartment they moved into a couple days ago, that you don't actually know a person until you've shared a space with them. Steve is no stranger to cohabitation, but after roughly a week of rooming with both Sam and Bucky he's starting to truly understand what that saying _means_. 

And see, he's used to shacking up with Bucky. Been there, done that. At several points in their lives. It's still a mile off from rooming with _this_ version of him, but he sort of knows what to expect. Bucky still doesn't quite understand the concept of _tidy_ – which, well, if the military didn't manage to instill that in him, nothing ever will, it kinda makes sense – and he considers chores to be somewhat optional and do-whenever-you-like. Not the most charming attributes for a roommate but he's generally contrite and, after a few reminders, does do what he's asked. Sam, on the other hand, has a solid understanding of what needs doing and how to do it; a little too much so for Steve's taste sometimes, though he's not excessive about it, so that works out. He always commandeers the radio and the CD player and keeps his hand on the remote _the whole time_ when they're watching TV, and he's getting away with that since neither Steve nor Bucky particularly care. Each on their own would make a fairly decent roommate. 

But both of them? Together? At the same time? Unbearable. 

Within an hour of getting up, Sam will be marching through the apartment with a frown that seems to be permanently edged onto his features these days, glaring at stray underwear in the bathroom or picking up a three day old half-eaten bag of chips from the coffee table and waving it accusingly in front of Bucky's face. He'll kick Bucky's feet off said coffee table with no explanation as to why that is an affront and should not be happening, and Bucky will shrug at him and flip him the bird as soon as he's turned away, rolling his eyes at Steve conspiratorially. Steve, for his part, will watch them, shaking his head slowly, and contemplate the odds of success if he were to try and drown himself in the shower, super-solider serum notwithstanding. 

And see, Wakanda was supposed to be a _temporary_ solution. Temporary, however, Steve quickly learned, is a term that can be stretched plenty in either direction. They've already been here for almost a month, and there's no end in sight for the moment. They're still international fugitives. This is still their refuge. But, Steve had decided and Sam had agreed, being put up in the palace for much longer was stretching the T'Challa's hospitality too thin. That Bucky would come with them was never _not_ part of the deal, and so here they are, in a penthouse apartment near the city center, still financed by the king but not directly at his doorstep anymore. 

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, and also, that way T'Challa would only pay for _one_ place and not several. A more than acceptable solution, everyone had agreed. Given the chance, Steve would reach into the past and slap the version of himself that had sanctioned his grave miscalculation upside the head, and quite hard. Oh yes. That would be the first item on his to-do-list, should time travel ever become available. 

 

***

 

There are several things Sam Wilson is infuriatingly excellent at. He's a great pilot, for one. That much is common knowledge. Less commonly known is the fact he gives earth-shattering, toe-curling blowjobs, and does so with an eagerness and obvious enjoyment that elevates them from a mere sex act to a downright religious experience. 

Bucky's sitting on the bed with his back against the wall and his legs wide as they can go, and Sam's kneeling between them, licking down the length of his cock slowly, tracing the veins there with his tongue, in complete ignorance of the way Bucky's rolling his hips in an attempt to urge him on. He looks up from under his lashes, lips curling up to form a mischievous smirk. He leans back and withdraws with an obscene pop, blows over the tip of Bucky's cock and the mess of spit and precome collected there. He dips back in, sucks a little harder and swirls said tongue just so around the slit, and Bucky can't hold it in anymore, releases his frustration and pleasure in a loud, resounding moan. 

And he regrets it almost on the spot, because two things happen simultaneously: one, Sam withdraws with a frown, and two, the door to Steve's room gets thrown either open or shut and there's no real way to know which unless he's about to storm in and demand what the _hell_ is going on here. 

Bucky bites his lip. Sam turns to eye the door as if it's suddenly become a black hole about to enfold them into certain doom. Neither of them quite dares to so much as draw in a breath. 

While they definitely arrived on the same page that the sex is fun and they should very much continue having it, everything else is... kinda up in the air. Bucky doesn't want much of anything right now, in general, recently deprogrammed and still not sure how to even start to work off the enormous guilt that comes with every new memory, every detail swimming back in; how to process the things his body did and his mind doesn't know how to handle, and Sam, well. Sam's shouldering a different flavor of guilt due to the simple fact that they _are_ doing this. Bucky knows that because after the first time it happened, Sam sat him down the next day and delivered a long-winded speech about how Bucky needs to concentrate on his recovery and on processing everything that happened to and because of him, and how a relationship of any kind is the last thing he should be thinking about. Needless to say, that lecture ended with Bucky's tongue down Sam's throat and fifteen minutes later he found himself on his back with his legs around Sam's shoulders for the second time in twenty-four hours.

They both don't want this to end now that it undeniably became _something_ , but yes, even Bucky managed to work out that Sam is _conflicted_. Which is why they both listen with their hearts in their throats for a few minutes that stretch out like hours, before Bucky reaches down to drag Sam up to him for a long, deep, reassuring kiss and Sam's hand slides down between their bodies to finish what his mouth started. 

In the morning, Steve casually congratulates him on having found the porn channels on their pay-per-view, that's healthy, he hopes he had fun, but may he ask that he keep it down lest he incites Sam's wrath in yet another matter of less-than-peaceful apartment-sharing? 

Bucky very nearly swallows his tongue.

 

***

 

Audiences with the king are a daily affair, negotiations about their fugitive status and all, but they haven't yet lost their shine. Some days, Steve's mind is still halfway in the forties, the son of a mother who had to stretch a fortnight's worth of money into the budget for a whole month; who spent his teenage years in a building where it rained through the roof in more than one corner of their apartment. That he's now walking through a palace and talking to the man who bears its crown is surreal. 

If Sam has the same concerns, he doesn't show it. Sam speaks to T'Challa like they went to third grade together and one of them hit it big and the other didn't; in acknowledgment of the difference in power and influence, but without even a hint of due reverence. That earns him amused, benevolent glances from T'Challa, and Steve has decided it's not his place to correct him. Maybe Sam's even right on this one, and his own insistence on form and respect is the wrong approach. Or maybe the combination of the two is what keeps them in the king's good graces. 

Bucky, on the other hand, avoids the court altogether. T'Challa doesn't summon him there either; he rarely mentions his absence. Steve doubts they have talked about this, but they seem to be in agreement. The son might have accepted that Bucky didn't actually have a hand in the death of king T'Chaka. The country, Steve assumes, would be slower to settle. And so Steve leaves with Sam some days, and alone on others, and Bucky always stays home. 

Today, Steve wakes to a gentle beep of his phone and the announcement on the screen that him and Sam are expected to show up for the morning council meeting in the palace. Another attempt at justifying their continued harbor those who oppose and criticize the young king, and the least they can do is stand by his side as he explains why they're still allowed to hide underneath his wing. But however noble the cause, it's still 6:30 AM, and Steve groans and hits snooze. 

One room over, a less gentle ring tone rouses Sam, and Steve shrugs to himself, blinks in confusion. Wasn't that Bucky's room...? No, no. He must have misheard. Doors are thrown open and shut, and while he glances at the tiny clock on his phone's display Steve finds the time to admire the discipline involved in getting out of bed at the first sound of an alarm. He yawns and rubs his eyes and reminds himself that he's a soldier, himself, and used to possess that discipline as well. He turns off the snooze function and sits up, swings his legs out of bed, and pads into the shower. A cold one. On principle. 

When he strides into the kitchenette fifteen minutes later, he's surprised to find both Sam _and_ Bucky sat on the stools around the countertop. Eyebrows raised, he sits down between them and helps himself to some cereal. He watches Bucky butter a slice of toast, and listens to Sam hiss when he leaves his knife on the dish. 

“Who the _fuck_ raised you?” Sam says with a glare, and Steve resists the urge to tell him that he knew Bucky's mother and that she was a generous woman who did her best to raise a handful of rambunctious children during hard times. 

Very slowly, and with exactly zero sign of being appropriately chastened, Bucky takes the knife out of the butter, licks it clean, and sticks it back in. 

The expression that falls over Sam's face is as close as humanly possible to a perfect o-face. It practically bleeds disgust. Bucky raises his eyebrows in clear challenge, and with a twitch at the corner of his lips that tells Steve he's greatly enjoying this whole scene. Sam huffs, radiating righteous indignation. He stands, roughly pulls the knife back out of the butter and throws it in the sink, where it lands with a loud, final clink. Then he stalks back to his stool and resumes glaring at Bucky over his own bowl of cereal. 

For a moment, as he glances from one to the other and tries not to smile fondly at the two ridiculous idiots he threw in with, Steve is reminded of his neighbors all through fifth grade – Mr. and Mrs. Gutierrez, a newly-wed couple that owned the kiosk down the street. He remembers them fondly; they sometimes invited him over to lunch when his mother was still at work. Their china was always mismatched because, as he learned quite soon, they kept throwing it at the other's head in an argument. They yelled at each other all hours of the day and made the walls rattle all night. Only in hindsight did Steve understand that their fighting and bickering was merely a prologue for their nightly activities, the passion gathered through the day sweetening their tumbles between the sheets. 

He shakes his head at the thought and shovels another spoonful of soggy cereal into his mouth. How random. Not an apt comparison, in this case, obviously. It's just that his friends make excellent comrades in arms, but much less compatible roommates. 

 

***

 

Sam shows up in Bucky's room maybe two minutes after all noise ceased in Steve's, and he stands in the door from with his arm crossed in front of his chest. He looks a little bit frustrated with himself, for his lack of restraint, for the fact that he's all but running in here as soon as their oblivious chaperone went to bed, but there's heat in his gaze and Bucky can't quite bring himself to feel bad. They'll have to talk about this some more, for real, at some point. Make sure Sam knows that Bucky can make his own decisions and won't place the blame where it doesn't belong – read, on anyone but himself – if this backfires in any way. 

For the moment, however, he can imagine a fair number of things he'd rather do than _talking_. He sits up on the bed and turns down the volume on the TV, and Sam wordlessly steps into the room and closes the door. In a few long strides, he crosses the room, and before Bucky knows it they're tangled up in each other, kissing, touching, desperate and urgent like they haven't done the exact same thing every night of the week. Clothes hit the floor and by now he's quite apt in fishing lube and condom wrappers out of the nightstand without even tearing his attention away from Sam's face, Sam's eyes, Sam's body, the noises Sam makes when he touches him the right way in just the right place. 

Bucky bites his lips when they Sam starts moving in him, measured and slow and with a vicious expression on his face, made more so by the angle the light from behind, the TV the only source of light in the room. He digs his nails in the skin at the small of Sam's back, only a little bit, both to urge him on and as payback for holding back. Sam reacts by upping his pace, sudden and relentless, and soon after they're both coming, clinging to each other while they ride out the sensation. 

Sam rolls off him with a long, content groan, though not before pressing one last kiss to the crook of his neck. “Nice one.” 

Blowing slightly damp hair out of his face, Bucky turns over onto his front, head thrown back, and grins, smug and self-satisfied, all of it doubled for show and to be extra annoying. “Happy to be of service.” 

In here, when it's the two of them and the rest of the world doesn't matter, Sam isn't so easily riled up. He merely rolls his eyes and props his head up on one arm, and instead of delivering a witty rejoinder his expression turns thoughtful. 

“What the fuck are we doing,” he says while he absentmindedly draws patterns on Bucky's shoulder with his other hand, carefully avoiding the edge of the new-and-improved arm made of pure Wakandan vibranium. Bucky doesn't think it's a question, but he nevertheless decides he'll answer. 

“Something good,” he replies. “Something that makes me feel alive and more like a person than I have since before the war. I just wish – ” 

Sam's fingers on his back stop their endless circles, and instead he swats at Bucky's shoulder. “We are not,” he says, insistent, “telling him yet.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky mumbles. They already had this arguments. He shifts so he can cross his arms in front of himself and use them as a pillow, then rolls his shoulders in silent demand. Whatever Sam's done with his fingers was _nice_ and Bucky wants him to continue more than he wants to keep arguing. 

And after a moment, Sam settles in with one leg thrown over Bucky's ass and his cheek resting on Bucky's shoulder, and he does just that. 

 

***

 

Steve sets his notebook case down on the expensive shiny black sideboard by the door and sighs to himself. It's not like anything could have really held him back from signing up for Ersekine's experiment way back when, he used to a be stubborn little shithead – well, he _is_ , minus the _little_ – but he has a feeling that, had someone told him beforehand that his live nowadays would involve meetings and politics and a balance act between wanting to jump through a television screen and being a polite, reasonable person capable of managing a superhero team that doesn't exist anymore in the first place... yeah. He does feel a little bit validated that the other party – namely Tony – did give in to frustration and threw a bit of a tantrum, and, thanks to that, they all got to go home early. Back at it tomorrow with calmed nerves and renewed sense of decorum. Steve very much doubts they'll get results then either, but he'll show up, of course he will. He'll keep showing up until there is some kind of solution, because the alternative is giving up, and that's another thing he's far too stubborn for. 

He allows himself another couple seconds of bemoaning the fact that he's become a person that leaves the house with a notebook case and wearing a suit, then he toes off his leather slippers and trots into the kitchen. This calls for something sweet and unhealthy. Living with Bucky, they'll have plenty of that lying around in their fridge, Steve is relatively certain. 

And hey, speaking of the devil, when Steve rounds the corner from hallway to kitchenette, he's greeted by the back of Bucky's head, facing the open fridge, hair in an unruly pony tail. He's shirtless, and he's amassing baking ingredients on the counter next to himself. Or no, not baking; there's a pan on the stove. Pancakes, then. Looks like Steve got home at exactly the right time. 

“Late breakfast?” Steve asked, mood improving greatly. Bucky's not exactly cook of the year, but his pancakes are _legendary_. The day might just be looking up. 

Bucky swivels around to face him, milk cartoon in one hand and waving a little with the other. Which leaves him with exactly no hand left to cover his privates. Because they need covering. Seeing how Bucky is naked. 

That is a sight Steve has been privy to before, but it is not one he wants to in any way associate with food and the preparation thereof, and so he turns around, palm shielding his eyes. “Ah fuck, sorry man. I didn't expect you to be, uh, you know.” 

At that exact moment, Sam steps out of the bedroom – _Bucky's bedroom_ – with a wide yawn, also naked, and rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. “Hey man, what're you doing out here, come back to bed, I just dozed off – “ 

He blinks at Steve, eyes wide, and at least _he_ has the good form to hastily cover his nakedness with his hands. “Shit.” 

And yes, well, sure, okay, after the last few weeks Steve's not exactly _shocked_. His reaction could be better described as one of these montages in movies meant to recap all the clues for the parts of the audience that were playing Candy Crush on the phone or went to pee at the pivotal moments. The scales are falling from his eyes. He's connecting the dots. All the puzzle pieces are moving into place as if guided by an invisible hand. 

Bucky sets down the milk carton and reaches back into the fridge for the butter, unimpressed, while Sam seizes the lapse in conversation and ducks back into the bedroom, mumbling a string of expletives that would make any sailor blush. By the time he reemerges dressed in boxers and a t-shirt and completely incapable of meeting Steve's eyes, Bucky's almost finished with the batter and has a fire going on the stove. 

Steve, meanwhile, has finished his run through the five stages of grief in record time, as befits a super-solider, and is mostly amused. He's going to grill Sam good and proper, later, make him squirm, but for now, he's hungry. Which is why he cuts Sam off with a wave of his hand when he opens his mouth for an explanation, or apology, or anything in between. 

He settles for elbowing Sam in the ribs, albeit giddily enjoying the exaggerated flinch he gives in response. “Has he ever made pancakes for you before? Because, let me tell you, your boyfriend makes the _best_ pancakes in the tri-state area.” 

Sam shoots him a glance that promises murder and begs forgiveness at the same time, and Bucky turns, licking batter off his fingers whilst he winks. 

“Thanks,” he says, grinning, and the knowing look he gives Steve says that he not only understands what the latter is doing, but also wholeheartedly approves. 

Steve, for his part, somehow suspects their home life isn't going to get any _calmer_ now that the cat is out of the bag. He just hopes they'll keep the thrown china to a minimum and, just in case, makes a mental notes to look up good, effective headphones on the internet once he's back home tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://lostemotion.tumblr.com).


End file.
